Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Ada Maud Story

Title: Mrs W.W. Story
Birthname: Broadwood
Nationality: English
Date of birth: 14 March 1856
Place of birth: London
Date of death: 25 February 1932
Place of death: 142 Quattro Fontane, Rome
Category: sitter

Identity:

Ada M. Broadwood was the daughter of an Englishman, Thomas Capel Broadwood and his wife Mary Davison Hennen, and granddaughter of Alfred Hennin, the New Orleans jurist. She married a close friend of Whistler, the American sculptor, Thomas Waldo Story (1855-1915) on 25 April 1883 in St Paul's Church, Rome. They had a daughter, Gwendolyn. The marriage did not last. On her death Ada Story left property in England worth £20,394.

Life:

She posed to Whistler for Portrait of Mrs Waldo Story y251. She was painted by J.S. Sargent in 1883 (Smithsonian American Art Museums).

Bibliography:

Blanche, Jacques-Émile, 'James McNeill Whistler', Renaissance Latine, vol. 4, no. 6, 15 June 1905, pp. 353-78 at p. 358; Blanche, Jacques-Émile, Propos de peintre, de David à Degas, Paris, 1919 , p. 60. The Times, London, Saturday, 2 July 1932, p. 8; Ormond, Richard and Elaine Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: complete paintings; volume 1, The early portraits, New Haven, CT1998 (cat.no. 104). Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980; MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995; Ramirez, Jan Seidler, 'William Wetmore Story', The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, ed. L. Macy.